A Thesis submitted to The University of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Medicine. / Myofascial release (MFR) allows clinicians to directly stretch and palpate soft tissue restrictions, improving tissue elasticity, and maximizing range of motion. Research has focused on MFR following repetitive motion strain (RMS), however there is no known application of prophylactic MFR. Utilizing in vitro strain models we will investigate the role of prophylactic MFR in regulating fibroblast wound healing. We hypothesize that MFR treatments will have greater efficacy when used prior to the repetitive motion strain, increasing the rate of wound healing. Human fibroblasts were seeded onto 6-well collagen-I bioflex plates, strained with the Flexcell vacuum compression system. Sub-confluent cell constructs were wounded using sterile 1ml pipette tips to create an area devoid of cells. Spatial wound edge changes were monitored to determine closure rate at 0, 12, 24, 36 and 48 hours. Pooled data for 36 hours demonstrated that RMS closed 32% faster than the combined RMS+MFR and 30.5% faster than the non-strain control, p<0.05. This meant the data did not support the hypothesis, but prophylactic stretching has been shown to prevent and reduce injury in 5 other models. Prophylactic MFR requires additional studies to expand our model to include multiple dosed treatments with a stronger emphasis on prevention vs. healing.

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Background: Massage can promote healing and recovery following exercise. (Carefelli et al. 1992). Barnes (1990) proposed that myofascial release helps to break up fibrotic fascial adhesions that may restrict joint range of motion (ROM). Self-myofascial release (SMR) is a type of massage that uses a roller and an individuals body weight to produce massage like loading over a specific anatomical area. Viscoelastic properties of muscle tissue extensibility increase during an acute bout (15 minutes) of massage-like loading (Haas et al 2012). Self-massage on the calves reduced pain and edema of the calves on nurses after an 8.5-hour work shift (Oh and Yoon 2008). Increasing blood flow through skeletal muscle will lead to increased oxygen delivery, which can increase healing and return to homeostasis post-exercise. Different shapes and densities of SMR rollers may produce different outcomes (Johansson 1962, Curran et al. 2012). Hypothesis: TP Footballer will have a greater effect on popliteal artery blood flow volume and ankle ROM vs. the SPRI® foam roller. Methods: N = 21 subjects (10 male 11 female; 18-27). No current lower extremity injury (within one year). No exercise 48 hours prior to data collection. Exercise was defined as any rigorous physical activity lasting 30 minutes or longer. Subjects rested prone 20 minutes. Resting BF and AD measurements were taken with an 8-13 MHz probe via Sonosite Micromaxx Doppler Ultrasound. Ankle ROM taken with a goniometer (mean of 3x). Statistics: Two-way repeated measure ANOVA and Bonferroni test was used to compare pre-test and post-test measures across both treatment conditions with two types of rollers. The α level was set at 0.05. Results: No significant increases found using the SPRI® foam roller on variables of BF Volume, TAP and ROM in plantar flexion. Significant increases found with arterial diameter. Significant increases using the TP Therapy Products Footballer® on variables of: ROM in plantar flexion, blood flow volume, arterial diameter Conclusion: SPRI® foam roller and TP Footballer® significantly increased popliteal arterial diameter. The TP Therapy Products Footballer® increased blood flow volume immediately following TP Therapy Soleus Protocol. TP Therapy Products Footballer® increased ankle plantar flexion immediately following TP Therapy Soleus Protocol. / text

The thesis is an inquiry into the nature of bondage and release in the Astavakragita. The focus in the first half of the thesis is upon to the practices of discrimination (viveka) and concentrative absorption (samadhi). In place of discrimination and concentrative absorption the Astavakragita offers naturalness (akrtrima) and spontaneity (yadrccha). The thesis argues that the be understood as a critique of Yogic and Advaitic soteriology as exemplified by texts such as the Vediintasara and Jivanmuktiviveka. The thesis then situates Astavakragita in a 'genre' of literature characterized by the repudiation and abandonment of 'means' to release: 'anarchic spirituality.· Finally, the appearance of Yogic and Advaitic soteriological language in the Astavakragita is accounted for by arguing that it is used to ironic effect by the text. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Release processes form an important, if overlooked, part of the complete software development life cycle. Many organizations implement the roles of release engineering and release management in different ways, with a wide amount of variance within the software industry. Ill-designed processes can lead to a higher number of software faults and costly delays. Failures in release engineering can have negative implications, yet the causes of release process failures are not well understood within in the software engineering research community. This dissertation addresses the questions of what the common release process structure is, what the common failure modes are, and how organizations recover from and prevent these failures. We address these questions through a series of case studies with practicing release engineers at commercial software companies. The live interviews with these individual companies provide insight into the state of the practice in release engineering today across a broad spectrum of organization and software domains. The results of these studies indicate four areas of theory in release engineering which future researchers can probe in more depth. These areas center around process organization, social causes of release process failure, the relationship between software architecture and the release process, and how organizations attempt to improve release processes. For practicing release engineers, these results show that most organizations would benefit from three primary improvements: increased process automation, more modular software design, and improved organizational communication and support of release engineering groups. By implementing these improvements, software development companies and the release engineering processes they support will avoid the most common process failures in this critical phase of the software life cycle. / text

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With an escalating skiing tourism industry where tourists are getting bolder every year in theirsearch for untouched snow, avalanche prediction gets more and more important. Avalancheprediction is often designated manual labour and many years of establishing avalanchedatabases. With GIS and high resolution DEM data it is possible to identify areas withavalanche danger over large areas at low costs. Using parameters as: roughness, inclination,curvature and vegetation models like the ones tested in this study can predict potential releaseareas (PRA). The results that the models present needs to be validated. This can be done eitherby manual labour by avalanche experts or by comparing the results at a validated resolutionfrom another area with avalanche databases. The present study is testing two PRA identifyingmodels on different DEM resolutions trying to identify if higher resolutions yields better resultsthan lower or vice versa. The validation of the results was a challenge, because of the lack ofavalanche databases in Sweden. In this study a 5 m resolution DEM and a model set updeveloped for Davos in Switzerland, was used as a as a reference model. The results showsthat a DEM with a high resolution of 2x2m do not identify PRAs (potential release areas) asgood as the resampled resolutions of 5x5m or 25x25m.

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